Nick Evans a doubt for rest of Premiership season

Former All Blacks fly-half Nick Evans is a doubt to return for Harlequins before the end of the regular Aviva Premiership season after suffering a serious leg injury.

Harlequins boss Conor O'Shea revealed Evans could face up to three months on the sidelines if damage to a bone in his right leg can only be repaired via surgery.

The 35-year-old suffered the malady in Harlequins' 28-6 league defeat at Gloucester on Saturday, and now face an anxious wait to discover the extent of the damage.

"He's seeing a specialist and he'll be out for a minimum of six to seven weeks," said O'Shea.

"He's pulled a bit of bone off the leg, it's just whether, with the damage he's done, it will need to be looked at for an operation.

"If anything happens it would be around 12 weeks.

"You see it happen a lot unfortunately. We just wish him luck."

Harlequins are currently fifth in the Premiership table and face Premiership rivals London Irish in the European Challenge Cup quarter-finals on Saturday, April 9.

O'Shea said should Evans require surgery to fix the injury, he is likely to miss the remainder of Harlequins' regular-season Premiership clashes.

And should they make either, Quins' incumbent fly-half and goal-kicker would be in a race to be fit for a potential Challenge Cup final, on Friday May 13, and/or the Premiership play-offs, with the semi-finals set for the weekend of May 20 to 22.

"If it does end up 12 weeks that would would bring him up to the final of the Challenge Cup," said O'Shea.

"Ben (Botica) will get a chance to run the show, and we have Tim Swiel too who played a lot of rugby for us last year."

Harlequins had been tipped as one of the clubs chasing the services of England and Sale Sharks fly-half Danny Cipriani for next season.

However on Tuesday, Cipriani's first club Wasps confirmed the re-signing of the 28-year-old, who will leave Sale this summer.

O'Shea admitted he had expected Cipriani to return to Wasps.

"We get a lot of people across our desk, and you talk to a lot of people, but it wasn't a surprise that he went to Wasps," said O'Shea.